Perennial
by Leng-Xue
Summary: Some things are meant to be treasured. That one moment that defines a person's life, for example. To an unrefined eye, the pinnacle of all of one's years could fly by and they would never know…
1. Wish Upon a Star

A/N: This will be a one-shot series detailing crucial points in the lives of our favorite characters :)

This particular piece was something I wrote up during my playthrough of Yakuza 4. Now, after completing Yakuza 5, I feel this does more justice to the series than I previously imagined.

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Wish Upon a Star

When you wish upon a star, sometimes your dreams come true. Life is like a fairy tale, really. You can see it if you look hard enough. The burgundy princess sleeps on her cassock of goose feathers, waiting for her prince to knock on that tower door…

Except that tower isn't actually a tower—it's a ruddy dilapidated building in the shady back alley of an unofficial Tokyo red-light district. And that princess? No, it's really a man who likes dressing like he's ready for Saturday night fever, his 'prince' being his secretary, Hana-chan. Instead of a sword and shield, she arms herself with a kalbi bento and a pair of chopsticks. She's the savior of his client record—and of his money in most cases. The fact that he could care less doesn't matter.

He naps with month-old magazines draped across his face, remembering the smell of the gutter outside Millennium Tower. It's like an age-old habit he can never get rid of, using those slimy ad-loaded pages as protection…protection from the cold, the wind, the looks of disgust he used to receive from people he used to emulate _exactly_ less than a handful of years ago. Those faded age-old days of wonder.

He doesn't know where they are now. All he tells himself is that he isn't that person anymore. He has his life together again; he has _Hana_ , the only one who has been faithful to him through thick and thin.

He has the legacy of his "chance."

On that night when the circle of heaven towered in the sky, a single streak of starlight crossed path with his empty gaze. The single flash of a coin in a dirty palm, spinning endlessly… The shimmering white blinded him. He waited for the sun and the moon in a time when glasses were full for all but him. He said, _let me rise from the abyss, let me be one with that ethereal sigh._

And the gods listened.

Susanoo-sama dipped a finger through that full, yellow pond in the blackest of days, and the sky _shuddered_. Stars rained down on the broken city that night, falling at the beggar's feet like heavy dreams.

He felt like a million dollars.

More like a million yen, to be precise.

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A/N: What canon didn't say was that Akiyama was the one who caused the explosion~ Please leave a review or a suggestion of what you would like to see next!


	2. Renewal

Majima/Kiryu bromance ask from tumblr.

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Renewal

Shaken and stirred. Stripped and scattered. A whole mess of loose blows and sloppy, half-hearted kicks flying every which way with nowhere to go.

Majima hated those kinds of fighters, the ones who didn't give a damn about the beauty of a true battle. They didn't understand the pain of a bruised lip or the high that came with a perfect punch.

Kiryu did. Sworn brother or not, he knew the fight with every inch of his being. It was in his breath, in the air around him—he lived and sang around the eternal struggle of the strong versus the weak. Fire burned through his veins in the same way as it did in Majima's. When they met again for the first time in ten years, it was almost like the dragon had woken from its hibernation, meeting the hannya for a taste-test of real life. It had forgotten what it was like out on the streets of their beloved Kamurocho.

He gave it to him. And when they matched blow-for-blow, it was like they were just a couple of young punks out on their own again, struggling to survive. It was like falling in love. That line between pain and pleasure, the confusion and jumble of emotions that made their fight so worthwhile fed their hunger for power. Demons never slept for long.

Kiryu was someone who could match his intensity. He outstripped it with his sheer power of will. They smiled and laughed through their arms, with every twist of their bodies. Their foreheads slammed together, mixing sweat and blood.

They cracked their forearms against each other and said, _Brother, do you see?_ A friendship like this was like a single star shining through the faded light pollution of the sky. It promised loyalty and days of evergreen…

It said, _I'll never forget this feeling._

 _I'll take a stand and believe forever._

A final connection of tight fists and faces glowed, bursting brighter than the sun.


	3. Time

Yet another Majima/Kiryu bromance ask from tumblr :)

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Time

For as long as either of them could remember, they'd thrived off of shared lighters and broken cups filled with cheap whiskey. The alcohol always burned better after a well-earned victory in battle. Majima would clap Kiryu on the back and they'd go to New Serena or Bantam, the eye-patched man asking him for cigarettes because he always forgot his back at the Millennium Tower offices.

They'd ram shoulders and laugh like young men. Older though their bodies were, in their souls, they were still shining with youth. The vigor with which they lived outshone most of the lads of this era. Deeply saddening as it was, it was true. It reminded the men that the world was changing too fast. It was blurring itself before their eyes, becoming nothing more than a faded canvas of the city they used to know so well.

They couldn't do anything more for Kamurocho… Maybe if they waited, maybe if they clinked their glasses together and offered them to the lords of the sky, they'd grant them their final wish: to keep everything the same, now and forever.

Of course, neither of them were _that_ stupid.

Nothing was everlasting. Pain was ephemeral as were their lives. The Dragon of Dojima and the Mad Dog of Shimano were nothing but names, names that masked the fleeting years that slid through their scarred fists.

They watched the ripples in the alcohol they bought, its musky odor washing over both their senses. It crippled and confused them, making them feel like everything was all right. As long as they were around, perhaps everything would be.

They were united in one thing-the sadness in their smiles. They shared that moment of heaviness, remembering that the next storm on the horizon could very well be their last. In this life, they were lucky to have survived as long as they did. To be yakuza meant giving up one's life in a single burst of passion, of belief for they way they existed. It meant having hope, having dreams and regrets and being there for friends…

And that was enough to bring the pair back to earth. The cold, hard concrete yielded to their footsteps as they roamed the wild urban landscape. No matter the trouble or cost, no matter what happened, they would be just fine.


End file.
